IBM, Deutsche Telekom and Tele2 Group all recognised the need for global IoT standards and partnerships – very much like yesterday’s keynote speakers.
The main announcement of the day was made by Holger Knopke, VP for Connected Home at Deutsche Telekom, who revealed the company will be expanding its Quivicom open platform and ecosystem to other European countries.
He said: "The platform has been on the market for 18 months, only in Germany, but it will move to the first European countries this year.
"It’s all about openness."
However, sitting down with CBR moments after breaking the news, the VP refused to comment on which countries will be included in the roll out and if the UK would be among the first ones to make use of the platform.
Neil Postlethwaite, IoT Program Director at IBM, also agreed companies need to come together for M2M and IoT to prosper as "no one can do IoT on their own, we have to partner.
"We can really take IoT to the next level."
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Following from Mr Postlethwaite, Rami Avidan, M2M Commercial Director at Tele2 Group, took to the stage to warn the audience that enterprises only "have to be complementary to the partners" in order to not lose business revenues themselves.
He added: "Think global at local."
Data is where the value is
For IBM "data is where the value is" and by extracting data, businesses will see new opportunities if they follow the "data > cloud > engagement" solution.
Using insights from real time data, enterprises will be able to come closer to customers and offer more "fitted" solutions to their needs. This will also be enhanced with cloud platforms.
Mr Postlethwaite said: "Data is the hawk, cloud is the owl. Cloud is about helping getting business on board very quickly and at a low cost.
"The cloud will enable the small guys to start and grow. It is changing the game from an economic perspective."
The director added that data is still "a bit slow but things are changing" and that big opportunities are out there in connectivity are are changing IoT.
Smarting up environments
Smart homes and smart cities was another big topic at this year’s M2M World Congress.
Deutsche Telekom’s VP for Connected Home said that many technology trends support the rise of the smart home, but "consumer awareness of the smart home is low".
Based on a German study, Mr Knopke revealed 72% of consumers "have no idea what opportunities to get from the smart home", although after the introduction of this technology interest was very high "reaching 96%" within those surveyed.
The VP called for an urgent strategy to educate the market as "concerns about the smart home need to be overcome."
Deutsche Telekom also shared that the most common problems with smart home solutions are cost and persistent connectivity problems.
However, the network provider highlighted a set of new business opportunities ranging from new insurance services, "pay as you use", install and onsite support, energy advice and add-on services such as warranty or security.
End-to-end solutions
To close the session, Swedish Tele2 addressed the need for scalable business models to answer customers and partners’ needs.
Mr Avidan said: "End-to-end solutions offer a better quality of service, simplicity and security, and are also global and scalable."
He introduced a new financial concept to which he called the "Circular Economy".
The director added: "There is a shift in business models. Today is about discussing business standards and not technology."
Tele2 said end-to-end solutions add value to customers as "they experience faster product availability, at better costs".
Mr Avidan said: "Reducing the barriers of entry for customers and partners is the obvious focus for a Mobile Network Operator (MNO) and they can take an end-to-end vertical approach or a horizontal one."
The panel was closed with Tele2 saying 96% of companies will be using IoT solutions in the next three years and that potential benefits "are massive, ranging from saving money to improving quality of service and making enterprises more environmentally friendly".
Picture: GlocalNumber
